


Paradise Found

by magmadragon



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: But I want to explore Rose as a person, I have no idea where I'm going with this, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, immigrant Rose???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:28:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23077423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magmadragon/pseuds/magmadragon
Summary: Rose is young - and he is new to Galar.He sees people - and they sweep past him.He sees himself - lost & alone.He wants to make Galar his new home.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 8





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Title is based on John Milton's Paradise Lost - I haven't read it, don't sue me.
> 
> No idea how long this is going to drag out for - but I want to dig deep into him.
> 
> May be canon-divergent in some places - this is fiction of fiction, after all.
> 
> Will update ratings if needed.

He begins with the slightest tremble. A puff. He exhales the smoke and the ash forces a cough out of him. One thing after another, he thinks. He pens the thought down, writing it in lucid, cursive handwriting. He shuts the leather-bound journal, thinks a little about how he’s going to get his next meal. Nothing has him more worried than the idea of returning home. Melati, pursuant mother of two, his sister Azalea, the success, the lawyer, and him, the kid with the job nobody wants.

He puffs again. Scrambles for a lighter as the fluids leak out, pooling on the floor beneath him. The concrete structures surrounding him tower over like megaliths, their forms bearing down on him. He slowly gets up, punts the cigarette stub with his leather shoes - shined to a gleaming finish - and watches it tumble into a drain - splish! Walking away, the leather-bound journal dangles from his satchel. 

He remembers the first time he did it. A euphoric rush of dopamine and adrenaline. Their tongues were wet against each other’s bodies. Going away was the hardest. Stay awhile with me, Rose, and your thoughts and spirit will come asunder. He still remembers the words etched in his heart and mind; the little drawing of the heart on the third page of that journal. Around it, surrounded by sketches; the subject unaware in most; front-facing in one, face a picture of utter joy.

He returns to Rose Tower, heels clicking against the tiled floor. He moves to the carpeted section of the tower - built from the blood and sweat of his own back. His lover, man of all things - gone. The workers have all gone home; payday came early this month as Christmas was just around the corner. He nurses a cup of instant coffee in the back pantry, the curlicues of steam rising from the cheap styrofoam cup. He loosens his tie in the heat, and swallows the rest of the coffee. 

The lights go out on Wyndon.


	2. Loose Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does a Rose spend Christmas? Shrivelling in the garden as a young man cuts you off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Won't stop making these puns rosier ;)

A snow warning is out before the coffee brews. Nearby, a copy of the latest PokéCeleb is draped neatly across the most conspicuous part of a sleeping torso. He shudders from the touch, and promptly puts food in the bowl. Jaya removes her trunk and digs in. 

“Not now, my dear,” as he grabs the steaming mug (#1 Boss!). Jaya noses her bowl and jabs his stomach. After the Copperajah has pried the entire bag open - ziptie and all - he looks out to the view of Wyndon - a snow-covered wonderland where children ran about with joy. 

Christmas was never a gift worth enjoying - there were instead calls from Melati (ignored), and generic greeting cards from Azalea (binned without opening). 

“Rose, what’chu got there?”

“Oh, this?” He turns over the envelope - ‘Merry Christmas’ and a fancy wax insignia completes it. 

“It’s nothing.” 

“Isn’t that the insignia of the Handa family?”

Rose thrusts the envelope into his hands.

“You can open it if you want to.”

“You sure? It looks important.”

“For fuck's sake, Eric! Can you _please_ drop it?”

Azalea opens her letterbox to find a note from her brother.

It’s binned - much like the pictures of him and Eric a day later. 

He cites - “irreconcilable differences.” 

But here he is - puffy-eyed as shards of glass lay strewn about the room. _Their_ room. Eric takes to the Web to call him “a dick (in more ways than one),” and his personal favorite - “Hungover over Dover - he’s the only one who can stop this war. God save this fucking Drama Queen.” 

So what if Eric wasn’t a person who left their laundry lying about? So what if he tolerated Rose bringing back Galdr fuck mates back to the flat they once shared? All that mattered was that it was his fucking tantrum that resulted in Rose sitting amongst a broken sea of glass - drenched in Kalosian red wine.

_It feels like I can’t do much without him by my side. So many times over did we fight for my independence - or what we thought it to be. He would think it was me spending time by myself - hours in the office planning Galar’s future with the occasional TV binge on the side - and I would think it was finishing work and coming back to loving arms, arms that I miss with such fervour. These arms I could ply my trade - but more than ever I missed the ability to really use my hands - for comforting, creating, and all other “c” verbs that didn’t involve cocksucking._

_How else does one love? Love begins when you start to love yourself - when you wake up each day with a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t fuck it up today. Even if you did, you promised yourself that another day would come. And the next. And the days leading up to hate._

_A lot of what I’d learnt had come from the fact that I’d spent a good chunk of my life wondering why I did to deserve this life - with all its wonders and false promises._

_Then I realised that it wasn’t much different for anyone else - just the scale and magnitude of it._

_Everyone was like everyone else._

_Miserable and yet so ecstatic._

_Even you. Fuck you._

Jaya is asleep - and Rose empties a bottle of wine in 5 minutes.


	3. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Years, new resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Now I have more time to update, and I'll be doing it more often now. Hope you're all keeping safe <3

_Wake. Feed Jaya. Bathe. Get dressed._

_Go to work, and wonder why every other page is marked red._

_Oleana, bless her, had these out before sunrise._

_Attend meetings. Listen to this cute blond scientist talk about improving the Dynamax Band. Observe as Oleana glances up and his face turns red. Smile, and think of Galar._

_Have lunch with board members. Smile. Eat as your eyes wander to the cute blond. He is poking his salad, so you sidle up to him. He looks at you. You smile. His face flushes red. The rest eat, and Oleana shoots them down in between bites of raw steak._

_You learn his name is Jun. He was brought in two weeks prior, but you were away in Kalos. He’s Oleana’s assistant. She mentioned his credentials — from Unova, with a doctorate in renewable energy, but you were busy peeking at your drawers._

_He comes back to your apartment. The company has no hold when **you** are the company. _

_It isn’t his first time, and yet you remind yourself he isn’t **him**. He works with a swift tongue, and you feel the heat rising within you. He falls asleep on your chest; you like his closed eyes and short bursts of breath. Jaya has wide eyes, and you smile at her. _

_It has been a long time._


	4. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
> 
> ― Kahlil Gibran
> 
> "I understand lost love, and I think that can destroy a man more than anything if it was a deep love that is lost somehow."
> 
> — Sam Elliot
> 
> "When you are infatuated and it's not reciprocated - don't become despondent, love will find you, of that I am confident."
> 
> — Anonymous
> 
> " Love is never finding a hand that perfectly fits yours. It is finding the one who is willing to hold your hands no matter how unfit it may be."
> 
> — Nishan Pawar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And a bit more steamy action this time. Little bit rusty from writing, so you may notice edits from time to time.
> 
> Hope everyone's doing well and keeping safe! <3
> 
> 10 points for the reference if you catch it... ;)

It is the smell of eggs that stirs Rose from his sleep. 

“Good morning, Rose,” he calls out from behind him.

Arms wrap, and Rose responds in kind.

“I got us eggs, you were out for quite a while.”

“...thanks.”

In between bites of scrambled egg and sugared lattes (milky white swirls in the shape of a rose — how sweet), Jun steals glances at the painting hanging above the fireplace.

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s —” 

It was ten years prior, on a day much like this one. He had fried eggs for him, and the coffees were brewing when he wrapped his arms around Rose. 

“Rose?”

He feels like fire and starlight, Rose thinks. 

“Yeah?”

Hanging above the fireplace, a painting of roses in a vase – painted in lush hues of red and pink. A single fallen flower by the wayside. Light reflecting off at just the right places. A Kalosian masterpiece — it must have cost him a fortune.

“More eggs?”

He looks at Jun, holding out a spoon. 

“Needs more salt.”

It was a day like this — and Rose was cooking, ass bared to the fortunate viewer. He will never forget the way his blood ran, and the eggs burnt to a hardened crisp.

Jun grumbles about unhealthy eating, and taps twice on the shaker. Rose feels him stiffen, and as the eggs are plated, the yolk is not the only thing that’s running.

“Hungry?”

“Food is secondary, dear Jun.”

Jun finds himself placed upon the bed, and Rose’s eyes sweep over a body that is most palatable: full of subtleties, rich flavour, and perfect texture.

Rose remains keen-eyed as he begins tracing tips with tongue, and lips with head. Jun is breathing short little gasps — the kettle had boiled over when the lovers made love that day.

“You’re beautiful,” he avows — and that is but the beginning.


	5. Belonging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief moment of the past, and what it holds for the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting back into the groove, and I realised these short bursts help me write more easily.

Even within the walls of the office, his eyes are in a distant space — it is a moment with Peony, where Jaya and her sister stood watch over the sleeping boys. 

It is the moment where he sits huddled under the blankets, and the only glow that comes is Peony’s smile as he tells a story.

With every inhale, he thinks of the clouds that Azalea points at — a little Jumpluff, a brief wisp of a Gastly, and when her fingers are tired he tucks her into bed to see them.

The evening sky is sinking beneath the eaves of the tower, and he thinks about the man whom he loved so dearly — and how much Eric resented his name. The mere sound of it was enough.

As the Corviknight bounds skyward, the only thought he has is how much Jun would’ve loved to see this.


End file.
